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William Shakespeare

English playwright and poet (1564–1616)

42 dated entries naming William Shakespeare, drawn from 33 separate years between 1564 CE and 2020 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as Shakespeare in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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16th century

  • 1564April 26 (baptized) – William Shakespeare, English dramatist and poet (died 1616)source
  • 1582November 29 – Ten years before he begins writing his first known plays, William Shakespeare, 18 years old, marries pregnant 26-year-old Anne Hathaway in England.source
  • 1593After April – William Shakespeare's poem Venus and Adonis probably becomes his first published work, printed in London from his own manuscript. In his lifetime it will be his most frequently reprinted work: at least nine times.source
  • 1594December 28 – The earliest known performance of William Shakespeare's play The Comedy of Errors takes place at Gray's Inn in London, and is played by the Lord Chamberlain's Men acting company. The production is held before members of the English court on Innocents' Day as part of the Gray's Inn Christmas festivities.source
  • 1595Probable first performance of William Shakespeare's plays Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream in London.source
  • 1595December 9 – What is probably the first performance of William Shakespeare's play, Richard II, takes place in London.source
  • 1596August 11 – Hamnet Shakespeare, son of William Shakespeare (born 1585)source
  • 1597April 23 – Probable first performance of William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor.source
  • 1598July 22 – William Shakespeare registers the rights to his new play, The Merchant of Venice, in the Register of the Stationers Company, under the title The Marchaunt of Venyce or otherwise called The Jewe of Venyce.source
  • 1599February 21 – At Southwark, near London on the south bank of the River Thames, the land upon which the Globe Theatre will be built is leased by Nicholas Brend to a team of investors led by William Shakespeare, Thomas Pope, actors Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, and three others.source
  • 1599September 21 – The first reported performance at the Globe Theatre in London (erected over Spring/Summer), a presentation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (probably new to that year), is recorded by Swiss traveller Thomas Platter the Younger.source
  • 1600William Shakespeare's plays Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing are published in London.source

17th century

  • 1601Possible first performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, perhaps in springtime.source
  • 1601September 7 – John Shakespeare, English glover, father of William Shakespeare (born 1529)source
  • 1602William Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor.source
  • 1602February 2 (Candlemas night) – In London, the first known production of William Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night takes place.source
  • 1602July 26 – William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, recently premiered by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, is licensed for publishing in London but not in fact printed at this time.source
  • 1603May 19 – The King's Men, a troupe of English professional actors composed primarily of former members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, is granted its royal patent by King James. The company will give the first performances of many of the plays of William Shakespeare, who is one of the company's 26 principal actors. Named in order of priority on the patent are manager Lawrence Fletcher, Shakespeare, and Richard Burbage.source
  • 1604November 1 – The first recorded performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello, takes place at the Palace of Whitehall in London.source
  • 1605January 1 – William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, copyrighted 1600, is given its earliest recorded performance, and witnessed by the Viscount Dorchester.source
  • 1606August (approx.) – Possible first performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth in London.source
  • 1606December 26 – William Shakespeare's play King Lear is given its first recorded performance, staged at the Palace of Whitehall.source
  • 1607June 5 – Dr John Hall marries Susanna, daughter of William Shakespeare, at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon (England).source
  • 1609May 20 – London publisher Thomas Thorpe issues Shake-speares Sonnets, with a dedication to "Mr. W.H.", and the poem A Lover's Complaint appended; it is uncertain whether this publication has Shakespeare's authority.source
  • 1610April 20 – William Shakespeare's play, The Tragedie of Macbeth, is given its first performance, staged at the Globe Theatre in London.source
  • 1611May 11 – The first known performance of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, probably new this year, is given at the Globe Theatre in London.source
  • 1611November 1 – At Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeare's last solo play, The Tempest, is given its earliest reported performance.source
  • 1616Latest probable date of Thomas Middleton composition of The Witch, a tragicomedy that may have entered into the present-day text of Shakespeare's Macbeth.source
  • 1616April 23 – (O.S., Tuesday) – William Shakespeare, English playwright and poet (born 1564)source
  • 1623November 8–December 5 – Publication between these dates in London of the "First Folio" (Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies), a collection of 36 of the plays of Shakespeare, half of which have not previously been printed.source
  • 1632The Second Folio of William Shakespeare's plays published.source
  • 1660February – John Rhodes reopens the old Cockpit Theatre in London, forms a company of young actors and begins to stage plays. His production of Pericles will be the first Shakespearean performance of the Restoration era; Thomas Betterton makes his stage debut in the title role.source
  • 1662February 9 – Judith Quiney, English daughter of William Shakespeare (born 1585)source
  • 1692May 2 – The first performance of the semi-opera The Fairy-Queen by Henry Purcell, based on William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream, takes place at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden in London.source

18th century

  • 1709The first modern edition of William Shakespeare's plays is published in London, edited by Nicholas Rowe.source
  • 1709Publication of The Works of Mr William Shakespear edited by dramatist Nicholas Rowe, the first modern edition of Shakespeare's plays, including scene divisions, dramatis personæ and a prefatory account of Shakespeare's life, the first substantial biography of him.source
  • 1715First record of the actress and writer Eliza Haywood, performing in Thomas Shadwell's Shakespeare adaptation, Timon of Athens; or, The Man-Hater at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.source
  • 1741February 14 – Irish-born actor Charles Macklin makes his London stage debut as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, pioneering a psychologically realistic style with Shakespeare's text revived, replacing George Granville's melodramatic adaptation The Jew of Venice. Kitty Clive plays the travesti role of Portia.source
  • 1757April 29 – Inside the house at Stratford-upon-Avon in England known as Shakespeare's Birthplace, a bricklayer, identified only as "Mosely", re-tiling the roof, discovers a supposed pro-Catholic testament of John Shakespeare, father of William Shakespeare, more than 150 years after the elder's death. The finding starts "what remains one of the most controversial topics in Shakespeare studies" because of disagreements over its authenticity and date.source
  • 1796April 2 – The only night of the supposed Shakespearean play Vortigern and Rowena (actually written by William Henry Ireland) ends in the audience's laughter.source

20th century

  • 1978February 11 – The People's Republic of China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.source

21st century

  • 2020September 19 – A 1634 edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen, the last play by English playwright William Shakespeare, is discovered at the Royal Scots College's library in Salamanca, Spain. It is believed to be the oldest copy of any of his works in the country.source

Named in the same entries